There is a God-shaped hush in Rainer Maria Rilke’s later poetry. Not an absence, but a retreat from the direct naming of the divine, a movement from invocation to intimation. This shift, subtle yet unmistakable, has long fascinated me. For decades now, I have returned to Rilke’s work as one might revisit a sacred grove: with awe and expectation for quiet revelation.

What are we to make of this retreat from the G-word?